Brioche is one of the original enriched breads. Enriched meaning that it contains lots of butter and eggs. According to Wikipedia, there was mention of brioche in print as early as the 13th century, though it's believed to be the descendant of a type of Roman bread.
The that quote usually attributed to Marie Antoinette about letting the peasants eat cake, many people think it was actually mistranslated and refers to brioche. She was saying to let the peasants eat brioche. According to Peter Reinhart, in his Bread Bakers Apprentice, there was two versions of brioche during that time in France. One of them was for the rich, which was chock full of butter, and one was for the poor, which had minimal amounts of butter. There were apparently strict rules governing who could buy which version. By saying "let them eat brioche" Marie Antoinette was saying let the poor eat the rich person's version of the bread.
Brioche is an amazingly rich, soft, flaky, delicious bread. It's kind of strange in that it contains so much butter, but it still turns out bread-like. In fact, brioche can have anywhere from 50% to 90% butter (that would be half as much butter as flour to almost as much butter as flour by weight). The most traditional and recognizable form of brioche is the brioche à tête (pictured above), but you can shape it any way you want.
Brioche makes a great brunch bread just because it's so buttery and tasty. I recently found a great formula for strawberry almond brioche from Cyril Hitz, a very well known baker. You can check out my version after the jump.
Imagine for a moment that you went to a local bakery and got a loaf of your favorite raisin bread. When you get it home you find small rocks are in the mix. Would you accept five bucks as compensation from the bakery?
That's what one customer in Somerville, Massachusetts did. As reported by The Consumerist, Michael Snyder originally asked for five more loaves of the raisin bread, but the bakery offered $5 and he took that. Apparently the raisins were from Chile and used an older production method that makes it easier for debris to get into the raisin supply. The bakery sent back the rest of the raisins.
There has been no talk about any injuries from the rocks, so I assume everyone is fine. I also suppose that things happen and you just need to be able to take things in stride, but five dollars? What would you do in a similar situation?
You may remember a few weeks ago that I brought you some information on starting your own sour dough culture. That is a very worthy pursuit, but even I admit that it can be hard to maintain and can be wasteful unless you make a lot of bread. But you want that great, complex taste that comes from the long development of yeast, right?
Well, there's a solution to that problem: preferments. Preferments are mixtures of flour, water, and very small amounts of yeast that are generally allowed to develop overnight. This way, you get highly developed yeast and organic acids without having to constantly feed a starter culture. There are four basic types of preferments. Keep reading to kind out all about them.
Ah, poolish. It's thought that poolish actually originated in Poland and migrated through Austria to France. Poolish is the preferment of choice among French bakers for the symbol of French bread, the baguette.
Poolish is a mixture of 100 percent flour and 100 percent water, with maybe about .1 percent yeast. That means that there will be the same amount of water and flour mixed together, and just a very small amount of yeast is part of the mix. Poolish should be a wetter mixture, not unlike a thick pancake batter. You'll know that this preferment is ready to use when the surface is covered in tiny bubbles and it looks like it has expanded and then flattened out. If the poolish has fallen at all, then it is overdeveloped and probably not good.
A poolish should be left in a cool spot overnight, but not refrigerated unless you'll need more than 12 to 16 hours. If you're making it in the afternoon for the next afternoons use, then I'd go ahead and refrigerate it. Just be sure to allow it to come back to room temperature before you use it.
Poolish, being a more hydrated mixture, lends itself particularly well to the development of lactic acid. If you taste a mature poolish, you should be able to taste yogurt or milk. The moister environment is more attractive to bacteria that produce the lactic acid.
The biga is a traditional Italian preferment. It's a less hydrated mixture and so it's much stiffer than most of the other preferments. I get asked a lot how it is that the biga is a stiff preferment when Italy is known for its really well hydrated breads like ciabtta. My answer is that Ciabatta is one among many different kinds of breads, and you don't use the same preferments for each one.
A biga is a less hydrated preferment that uses about half as much water as flour (maybe 60 percent water sometimes), in addition to the small amount of yeast. I generally use a stand mixer to mix a biga, because it's supposed to have a more dough-like consistency. A biga should be left at covered at room temperature for about an hour and then refrigerated overnight. It needs to be allowed to warm up at room temperature for about an hour before being used, and the biga should have a nicely domed top to tell you it's ready. If it looks a little deflated that's OK, but too much deflation is not good.
This type of preferment is more hospitable to the kind of bacteria which produce acetic acid, so it will have a more astringent flavor and smell.
The preferment called a sponge is the quickest of all. It's generally ready in about three hours. If you're really in a hurry, or you forget to mix a preferment the night before and really want to have one, then the sponge is the way to go.
The sponge is generally a mixture of about half of the flour in a recipe, all of the water, and all of the yeast. That's why the sponge acts so quickly. Apart from its quick action, a sponge is similar to a poolish. Both are very wet, and the top surface of each will be covered in small bubbles when mature. Needless to say, a sponge should be left at room temperature for the whole fermentation period.
A sponge will also taste a little bit more like lactic acid, but the taste won't be as pronounced because it did not have as much time to develop. The yeast and organic acids will definitely be developed, just not as much as an overnight fermentation.
Pâte fermenté is translated as "old dough." It is literally a finished dough that is added to the freshly mixed dough. This may seem odd, but the practice probably started when home cooks had to save a piece of the old dough to make sure they had leavening for the next days bread. It can either be made especially for whatever bread you're making, or you could save a portion of the dough you make today and use it in tomorrows loaf.
Since it is an old dough, pâte fermenté does contain salt, in addition to the flour, water, and yeast. That's fine because the dough has still been able to develop the yeast and organic acids over the fermentation period. The pâte fermenté must be refrigerated overnight, and you can add it either cold or at room temperature to the new dough. Because the gluten has already been developed as well as the yeast and acids, the pâte fermenté should be added toward the end of the mix. That way, the gluten in the pâte fermenté won't get over developed.
If you like bread, chances are that you'd like to stay away from those national brands with lots of preservatives. I know I prefer the artisanal loaves that are free from shelf-extending additives. My problem is that I don't go through bread fast enough and it invariably gets moldy if I get good quality bread. I generally turn to freezing it, and throwing frozen slices into the toaster when I want to eat them.
Wasted Food has posted this article about storing and keeping bread fresher, longer. It's a question and answer session with Paul LaDuca of Zingerman's, a Michigan bakery that does a lot of mail order. He recommends a bread box, and keeping your loaves in a paper bag. According to LaDuca, a plastic bag just draws the moisture from the crumb into the crust, making it soggy.
I was aware of most of these tips, but I have to admit I hadn't thought of using my oven as a bread box. What are your favorite bread storage tips?
The word proof has a lot of meanings. It can refer to alcohol content, a mathematical procedure, or evidence. However, in the world of baking, proof refers to rising dough.
Home bakers, and recipes aimed at home bakers, refer to it as "rising," but professionals call it "proofing." Proofing is a part of the bread making process where fermentation takes place, causing the dough to expand, grow, or rise (whichever term you prefer). Depending on who you ask, proofing can include the first period of fermentation, which is usually called the bulk fermentation. Most of the time, though, proofing is the second stage of fermentation, called the "second rise" by home bakers. This is the period after the final shaping when the dough is left to expand to it's proper size before baking.
Proofing is an important stage in baking (of course each stage is important in its own way) for three reasons. First off, more fermentation occurs for that much more flavor. The fermentation then causes gas production which makes the dough expand to a larger size. Also the gluten is able to relax which allows oven spring to take place.
Have you ever seen a beautiful loaf of artisan bread and wondered how the baker got those great slash marks? Well, they got it by using a tool called the lame (pronounced lahm). The lame creates that slash, or score, in the bread, which is also called an ear.
The lame probably originated in France, but it was quickly adopted by artisan bakers in the US. It creates a score on the top of the bread that even a very sharp knife can't achieve, which is due to the curve of the lame as well as it's razor edge. When the bread expands in the oven, the crust will split at some point, no matter what. Scoring the top not only creates an aesthetically pleasing look to the bread, it also allows the baker to control how and where the inevitable split will be.
The lame is used by holding it gently by the very end, and dragging it across the surface of the dough just before putting it into the oven. You need to use enough pressure to cut into the dough, but try not to go too deep. Also, the lame should be held at a slight angle to the dough to get a proper ear. Most doughs with a stiff enough consistency should get a good ear, but really wet doughs will not.
The best one I could find for a home baker was this lame from King Arthur Flour.com. It should stay sharp for quite some time, and it comes with the blade guard for more safety while you're not using it. Professional bakers have a lame which has a replaceable blade, while this version does not. At under $7, this lame could be a great asset to your tool kit if you're really serious about bread.
There is nothing better than a fresh baguette! But, how many times have you opened your bread holder at home only to find that your bread has become hard like a rock? It's the fresh well-made bread that does not last more than a day or two. The truth is that this bread never really goes bad. It's use merely changes. Rather than eating the bread on its own, you will want to cook with it or add it to a salad. Below are 8 ways to make use of day-old bread:
I have a foodie confession: While I do like fruit, I almost never eat it in its full form. I try -- really I do. I buy fruit and eat some nibbles, but before I get to the rest, it inevitably goes bad and I have to either have to throw it into a smoothie pronto, or freeze it for a smoothie later. But that's not the case with my beloved banana.
Banana is the wonderful fruit that's good even when it's bad. The blacker and more shriveled that the skin is, the better it is for baking up a batch of banana bread. I picked some up a few weeks ago, with the best of intentions, but they went black before I could eat them. But they're bananas! So, no matter how hot my apartment was, I knew what I had to do.
As if that wasn't good enough -- recipes that allow you to make the most of fruit going bad -- banana bread is one of the easiest and most forgiving foods to bake. The above was whipped up half-assed. I doubled my recipe. I didn't level off my measurements. I smushed and mixed it all together in the end with a potato masher. But still, the end result was a nice warm cakey bread with a little bit of melting butter.
Have you ever had a great loaf of bread and wondered how it got that delicious flavor? More than likely, it was because the baker used a starter. A starter, or levain, is a mixture of water and flour that has developed its own yeast colony. When you use a starter, it is either the only or the main source of yeast in the bread, and using it lends a couple of really great qualities to the final product.
First of all, the bread will taste better. Bread made with starter will have a complexity of flavor, as well as a beautiful aroma. The bread will also have a longer shelf life. The organic acids that result from fermentation lower the pH of the bread, which slows down the staling process and discourages mold growth.
If you bake bread at home, I encourage you to use your own starter. You could get some from a friend, or maybe your local artisan bakery if you're lucky. There is another option, though: you could make your own starter from scratch. All you have to do is mix water and flour together. Then you have to feed it by adding water and flour on a regular basis in order to get the nascent yeast population to grow. This can be a little involving, but if you're serious about baking your own bread then this could be the next step in your evolution as a baker. Sourdough Home offers a very good explanation of how to start a starter and in quantities good for home use.
Here are a few tips before you get started. Organic flour probably has more yeast left in it than processed flour, so that's recommended. Use regular tap water. If you don't have any experience with preferments or starters, then you may want to do some more research. As Sourdough Home points out, it's a good idea that you know what a proper starter looks and smells like to have a successful one yourself. I suggest doing some reading and visiting your local artisan bakery to see if they'll help you out. Bakers tend to be good about sharing knowledge, so you have a pretty good chance of getting a few pointers, at least. Hopefully, you're on the road to having your very own starter, and a lifetime of great bread!
I love grilled cheese, whether the cheese is lumped between two pieces of bread with other goodies, or done my dad's way, open-faced and broiled until the center is gooey and the perimeter is crisp. Along with a cheese omelet, it's my favorite late-night snack -- especially if you add tomatoes.
And today, I'm in a whirlwind of grilled cheese fantasies because the Kitchn just referred back to a really great AOL Food list of awesome, gourmet cheese sandwiches (that Bob blogged about last year). After thoughts of homemade cheese delicacies, I started thinking back to grilled cheese outside the house.
Some places have recognized the wonder of grilled cheese. If you research the W Hotel, you'll find that many guests have noted their great grilled cheese, whether it has crab added to it in New Orleans, or tomatoes in San Francisco. I had the latter, practically drooling at the thought after a long night out with friends. My friend and I both ordered the gc and fries, and when it arrived, alcohol-fueled, 2-AM chatter was replaced with heavenly groans. It's that good. It wasn't too fancy. In fact, it was pretty simple, but tasted perfectly wonderful.
Do you ever bother to order grilled cheese out of the house? And, if so, have you had any worth mentioning?
The only challenge in making super-fresh pizza is refraining from piling it so high with goodies that there is no way you could possibly pick it up and eat it because even the best doughs will crumble to the weight. I started my own pizza obsession with those thick, cheesy, and tasty flatbread starters that's just waiting for the ten tons of toppings. From there, I moved into bread machine dough, then no-knead dough, and now my personal favorite -- Robbie's Thin Crust Pizza Dough.
The recipe is easy, incredibly quick, and creates the perfect crispy, thin crust. But, if you happen to like it thicker, it's also pretty darned tasty rolled out thicker and smaller. For the pizza above, I started the dough, and got the other ingredients going while the yeast and water rested for 8 minutes. To make it extra crispy, I even threw the dough in the oven for a few minutes as I finished gathering the toppings. What came out was pizza heaven.
Another quick tip: If I don't have sauce, I mix together whatever I can find into a pseudo sauce. the tasty concoction above came to be from a small amount of frozen meat sauce, leftover vegan pesto, some jarred salsa, and olive oil.
Have you ever seen a beautiful loaf of artisan bread and wondered how the baker got those great slash marks? Well, they got it by using a tool called the lame (pronounced lahm). The lame creates that slash, or score, in the bread, which is also called an ear. 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
